David Grunfeld / The Times-PicayuneLouis Fitzmorris celebrates with family after beating Patricia Schwarz Core in the St. Tammany Parish assessor's race.

Two days after winning the office in a stunning victory over an entrenched incumbent, St. Tammany Parish Assessor-elect Louis Fitzmorris said Monday he expects a smooth -- if, perhaps, extended -- transition.

Fitzmorris said Assessor Patricia Schwarz Core, who he defeated in Saturday's runoff, has pledged to work with him as the office changes hands for the first time in nearly two decades.

Due to a quirk in state law, perhaps owing to the days when assessor's tax rolls were drawn up by hand, assessors do not take office for more than a year after they are elected. In Fitzmorris' case, he is not slated to take office until January 2013.

Meanwhile, Fitzmorris' win will also have a domino effect in the town of Abita Springs, where he is currently wrapping up the first year of his third term in office as mayor. Because there will be two more years remaining to Fitzmorris' term when he leaves office at the end of 2012, he said he expects there will be a special election to fill those years, perhaps in spring 2013.

Riding a wave of voter disenchantment, Fitzmorris toppled Core in a close contest, 50.2 percent to 49.8 percent. Although a scant 122 votes separated the two candidates, Fitzmorris said beating an entrenched assessor is a rarity.

"I felt like we made a little history,'' he said. "She (Core) not only underestimated me, but she underestimated the will of the people.''

Running as a political outsider, Core won the office in 1991 in a race did not feature an incumbent. Then Assessor Kirk Wascom, mired in a federal fraud investigation that eventually lead to a guilty plea stemming from his years as head of NorthShore Regional Medical Center in Slidell, did not seek re-election.

Though there wasn't an incumbent in the race, Core and the other candidates nonetheless spent much of that campaign hammering the Assessor's Office as being run by political insiders who unfairly and unevenly assessed the parish's properties.

Those very themes played out again this fall -- but this time it was Core's challengers railing against her.

And as she sought a sixth term, she was undone by a raft of criticism ranging from complaints over property assessments to media reports revealing her office's heavy spending on food and meals in high-end restaurants. In the six-candidate primary Oct. 22, Core failed to crack the 40-percent barrier, foreshadowing a difficult road in hanging onto her office.

Knowing there would be a low turnout for the runoff, Fitzmorris said his campaign was able to "get our people out.'' That he came out ahead in early voting totals was "a good sign,'' he said.

Slightly less than 20 percent of the parish's 154,000 registered voters took part in the runoff, Registrar of Voters M. Dwayne Wall said.

Fitzmorris said Core telephoned him Saturday night to offer her congratulations. "We did have a good conversation. She said she would work with me on the transition. I take her for her word.''

Fitzmorris said he plans to announce his transition team in the coming weeks,

He said Core did have one request: "She asked me not to clean house.''

Fitzmorris said he plans to thoroughly evaluation of the office and its staff, but that it isn't his intention to simply get rid of people.

"I know there are good people in that office who are doing their job and they don't have anything to worry about,'' he said.